The Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase is ready to move to its third location in downtown Ann Arbor since the entertainment venue was founded 29 years ago.

Owner Claudia Neeb signed a lease to relocate the comedy club from the basement of the VFW Hall building at 314 E. Liberty St. to the basement of the building at 210-216 S. Fourth Ave., just north of East Liberty Street.

The new space is 5,500 square feet, compared to the 3,600 square feet the club occupies below Seva Restaurant on East Liberty. Neeb said the club will continue operating on East Liberty Street until January, when the new club opens.

“We’ve been looking for (new locations for) a couple years, and we wanted somewhere where we could grow a little,” Neeb said. “We’d like to have a little more seating, not a lot, because we’re still a small club.”

Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase will occupy the basement of the building at 210-216 S. Fourth Ave. in downtown Ann Arbor.Courtney Sacco | The Ann Arbor News

The move will give the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase the space to increase its seating capacity by about 10 percent. The new location will also be handicap accessible, and it will have a holding area and a bar separate from the showroom.

“That will eliminate the bar noise in the showroom,” Neeb explained.

Added Roger Feeny, who runs the venue with Neeb: “This will all be designed for the show. It’s going to be better, a lot better.”

The Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase — which began in 1984 as the Main Street Comedy Showcase above the Heidelberg Restaurant — has been in its current location underneath Seva since 1987. In July, the 40-year-old vegetarian restaurant announced plans to relocate to the Westgate shopping center at Maple and Jackson Roads. The restaurant plans to move in late 2013 or early 2014.

Both Seva and the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase were operating on month-to-month leases in the VFW Hall building, and Neeb said she couldn’t come to an agreement with the landlord on a lease rate.

VFW Post 423 Ann Arbor is the registered owner of the building. A representative with the VFW could not be reached to comment, but the two floors of the building are listed for lease with Colliers International Ann Arbor. The first floor is listed for an annual $19.50 per square foot, and the basement is listed for an annual $7.50 per square foot.

Originally, Seva and the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase were hoping to find a new downtown location that the two businesses could share. Both Seva and the showcase worked with Colliers to find a new location.

A rendering shows the proposed plans for the building at 210-216 S. Fourth, which involves a building addition and makeover of the facade. J Bradley Moore & Associates

“It was hard to coordinate moving two businesses simultaneously,” Neeb said. “It’s a little sad because we get along very well with the Jacksons. It’s a little bittersweet, but it’s exciting to move to a new space.”

Feeny added: “This has been a great room for us, but like I told Claudia, I really wouldn’t want to move unless we were going to a better place. I think this next room is going to be a better place.”

Neeb and Feeny said the new showcase will have an improved seating arrangement, but it will keep its intimate feel with a low ceiling and small tables. The club books rising talent and has drawn big stars over the years, including Tim Allen, Drew Carey, Rosie O’Donnell, Chris Titus and Ellen DeGeneres.

The Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase has a full bar and a snack menu.

Neeb said renovations will start next week on the building at 210-216 S. Fourth Ave. The mixed-use building was sold in May to Joe Barbat and David Ebner of Barbat Holdings LLC following a foreclosure.

Barbat and Ebner, working with architect Brad Moore of J Bradley Moore & Associates, plan to construct three additional floors on top of the existing two-story building and restore the building’s facade.

Plans were approved last week by Ann Arbor’s Historic District Commission and will go before Ann Arbor Planning Commission in coming weeks. The basement of the building is unfinished.

“We saw (the basement) as usable and leasable space and we were looking for a good tenant,” Ebner said. “I think it’s ideal. It’s great for us, because someone takes the entire basement.”

"Ideally, if everything continues to work out, there will be people living (in the building), and it will create more activity in that area," he continued.

Lizzy Alfs is a business reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Reach her at 734-623-2584, email her lizzyalfs@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter.